York Board Votes To Replace Nick's

Parking Deck To Take Eatery's Place

October 09, 2002|By CHRISTOPHER SCHNAARS Daily Press

YORK — Diana Steele wiped a tear from her eye outside a York Hall meeting room Tuesday night.

She worked at Nick's Seafood Pavilion for six years. She remembers the day when then-owner Mary Mathews got sick shortly before her death in 1998. Steele said county supervisors were wrong if they thought that Mathews wouldn't care about the fate of her restaurant.

"I hope Miss Mary haunts them every day," she said.

The York County Board of Supervisors voted 5-0 on Tuesday night for a waterfront-development plan that would raze Nick's Seafood and replace it with a parking deck. More than 20 people attended the meeting, which didn't include an opportunity for the public to speak to the board.

Greek immigrants Nick and Mary Mathews founded Nick's in 1944. They were known for their philanthropy and willingness to provide a free meal, particularly to those who served in the military.

Earlier this year, York County paid the Jamestown-Yorktown Educational Trust $3 million for Nick's and other property that had belonged to the Mathewses.

Supervisors Chairman Don Wiggins said he believed that Mary Mathews was in heaven and that she wouldn't be upset about the county's plans.

"I think she'd be smiling at us for the decisions we're anguishing over," Wiggins said.

County Administrator James "Mac" McReynolds said construction of the replacement restaurant and the rest of the waterfront development could begin by late spring or early summer of next year. Robert Krause, the county's Yorktown revitalization director, said construction would take about a year.

Supervisor Walt Zaremba said he thought that Nick's should remain open until the new restaurant was built and ready to open for business. County supervisors haven't decided that issue.

Before Tuesday's vote, four of the five county supervisors said they favored tearing down the restaurant, rather than fix it. Last month, county staff said it would cost about $1.3 million to renovate Nick's, compared with less than $1 million for a new restaurant.

Zaremba was the only supervisor who didn't publicly say before Tuesday night whether the restaurant should be fixed or torn down. In announcing his support to raze the building, he said he didn't think that Mary Mathews would oppose the county's plans to raze Nick's and build another restaurant along the York River. He said plans for a waterfront restaurant had been part of the county's master plan for more than a decade.

Cheryl Hogge, a waitress at Nick's, said she wasn't surprised by the vote. She and Kimberly Keel, another waitress at Nick's, started a petition to try to save the restaurant. They said they got more than 5,000 signatures.

"I'm not going to stop yet," Hogge said. "I'm not done yet."

The $7 million waterfront development will include a restaurant, shops and an open space for small concerts and other performances. That development was the same for all six options that county supervisors had to select from Tuesday. The differences lay in where the county would build more parking and the fate of Nick's. Some options included a second restaurant on the bluffs, which supervisors decided against.

Sam Canavos, a Greek-American and partial owner of Sammy & Nick's restaurant in Newport News, said Nick's was a part of Yorktown's history that should be preserved. He questioned the county's estimate to repair Nick's and said a decision on whether to make those repairs should be left to a restaurateur.